


EASY (SIDE B)

by earthmylikeness



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 08:19:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17076728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthmylikeness/pseuds/earthmylikeness
Summary: “Don’t do that,” Steve murmured, half-sure, pushing an arm in between them—that Billy easily grabbed and pulled far, far away, from this.Steve Harrington keeps telling Billy Hargrove what to do, like it’s ever going to work.





	EASY (SIDE B)

**Author's Note:**

> Listened to these two on loop:  
> [▶︎](https://youtu.be/v0u-ZxAYXYI) as Steve Harrington’s anthem and  
> [▶︎](https://youtu.be/nK4f0DubUFE) as Billy Hargrove’s

* * *

 

Steve was maybe half out of his mind, going slowly but steadily crazy, brain fused to the side of his skull by the heat and general trauma. 

He had to be, as nothing else explained why he was here: feet in the water, watching Dustin Henderson and his nightmare crew screaming bloody murder in the deep end of the Hawkins Community pool on this, the first week of summer, instead of anywhere else on this blighted earth.

He sighed, drawing breath and the dry heat, drowning out the hellhound shrieks and splashes of water on his sun-burnt face with the theme song to ‘Cheers’ running on a skipping loop in his head; something definitely, irretrievably wrong with him.

Nancy had pulled him aside earlier in the day as testament, tagging out from babysitter duty, clad in a sundress and pretty brows pinched in worry, asking, “have you been sleeping?” and “you look a mess, Steve,” and Steve knew, he didn’t need the girl he loved to tell him about it.

His face was still marked up, stitches hanging by a thread. Dark under his eyes, under his crooked Ray Bans, hair wilting in the heat. Steve maybe took pride in how he looked once, was considered preppy, a trend-setter. He felt naked without the rubber gloves nowadays.

And, well, Nancy Wheeler didn’t love him back, had fallen in with Jonathan Byers, and that was fine. No amount of flowers or grovelling would have her look at Steve the way she looked at him—and Steve wasn’t as dumb or hopeless to keep beating a dead thing, only by a bit.

The younger Byers was cussing now, whipping by him with three corndogs in hand, being chased by the younger Wheeler—and Steve stuck out an arm, automatic, gating them both—“Don’t run, assholes, can you read?”, he nodded at the sign on the building—under which it also read ‘no smoking’, which Steve didn’t know how to read.

Dustin came up from the water, full-on snorkeling gear, grabbing at Steve’s leg hairs, “Come on, Harrington, five bucks says I can hold my breath longer,” and Steve looked around for the fourth one, on instinct, found him hanging by his fingers on the chain-link fence, looking out at the blistering parking lot.

No one in the world would imagine that Steve Harrington was an only child. That he wasn’t a single father of four, sometimes five, terrible pre-teens.

It was Jonathan’s turn in a couple hours, watching them. And anyway they’d be in high school soon, and wouldn’t need a chaperone at the pool—but everyone was still on edge by the literal hell-mouth opening up just outside of town, the interdimensional demon dogs that prowled the streets only weeks ago—and no one really wanted to be the first to look away, to lose sight of any more kids around here.

“Alright, alright, no snorkel,” tugged the pruny hand on his ankle, and besides-

It wasn’t so terrible, watching them. Henderson was a good kid, cooler than he let on. And one tended to get attached to kids when one hung around them long enough, especially in near-death situations. You got invested. 

There were worse things Steve could be doing with his summer. Like sitting around, nerve-wracked over his college applications, looking for a part-time job. There were parties happening across town, the asphalt beating under his wheels—but he was never feeling it. The bullshit. It wasn’t like Steve had better friends there to waste his time with, if he had any left in Hawkins at all.

A familiar roar of engine, and everyone froze mid-chaos, heads turning to the sound like a nature documentary. Oh and right, Steve did have a predator.

“Here comes Max!”

The Camaro screeched to a halt, jolting, thirty feet away—and the kids stuck like flies to the fence. Steve pulled up out of the pool after Dustin, followed to look.

Billy Hargrove, a speck of gold in the white-hot sun, a safe distance after the bloodiness of that other night. Had left Steve alone for the remainder of school, barely showed up to practice. His nice car in the school lot and boastful crackle of a voice at the end of halls the only signs he still existed in the same universe.

Steve leaned against the fence, hands in pockets, squinting. Will Byers opened the gate to the pool, waving a corndog in the air.

Billy Hargrove was a distinctly unhappy person—anyone could see it from a mile away. Even through the party-boy demeanor, the reckless, carefree way he drove around town like he owned it, blaring Zeppelin down the streets; you could tell. 

Steve figured everyone in Hawkins was a little unhappy, but no one came close to that one. Hargrove walked around like a black hole most days. A smug, self-advertising threat, sucking in anything that dared threaten his careful aura of superiority veiling his actual fragility; Steve could write a paper about it, but it would probably be crap.

Maxine rolled out the backseat, her taped-up deck wobbling a little as she slid toward them across the lot.

Hargrove had a bandaged hand out the window, face shaded from the sun. The car honked, prompting a begrudging but civil response from Max—and Steve watched in the corner of his eye as the Sinclair kid retreated physically from the fence.

That night, when all hell literally broke loose, was a blur in Steve’s memory. Only the sharp parts of it still throbbed like the stiff, yellowing bruises on his chin, the bridge of his nose. He remembered the crash of glass, date night cologne, the wooden, hollow sound his head made as it collided with the floor, over and over. 

He remembered waking in a stranger’s car with a concussion, pennies in his mouth, the smell of putrefaction stinging his senses as they descended into a kind of biblical underworld with only a bat as weapon. Steve remembered telling a lot of people what to do, and no one listening to a damn word he said.

At some point during the longest night of his life Hargrove had maybe threatened Lucas Sinclair to death—had the kid pinned to a wall by the throat, promising violence—all on Steve’s watch. 

And so, yeah, it was sort of on him that these shithead kids—as much as they had a hand in upending his life over the course of a semester—was traumatized too by his own inaction, weak shins, whatever.

Hargrove was no Demodog, but he was some real pain in Steve’s ass.

Steve glanced down, and there was that wary look on Dustin’s face as he squinted up at him, assessing his beat-up mug—like he was being protective of _Steve,_ worried that there’d be another casualty if Hargrove got any closer; which, god damn it, there wouldn’t be. Steve would never win, but would also never lose another fight to that curly-haired deadbeat again.

“Where are you going,” Max called, skidding to a stop, voice hitching in alarm—as Steve jogged past her towards the glaring Camaro, painted like a scar across the lot. His head was a buzz, showtune playing on loop, hands feeling empty as he waved behind him to the worried, prepubescent choruses of his name. Steve was used to this feeling by now, walking straight into danger.

As he got closer, Steve could see fellow senior Margaret Farrow in the passenger seat, snapping gum. He’d made out with her once, in middle school—he wondered what happened to her and that point guard, Peterson; they hadn’t even lasted a week.

Billy Hargrove had watched him the entirety of Steve’s stilted, ill-advised journey to the car, and was now peering up at him through a curl of meticulously placed forelock, mouth agape on an unlit cigarette as if impressed at the absolute _gall_.

Steve stopped a foot away, hands on his waist, returning the look with some effort; the sun in his eyes. It had been some time since they’d last faced off, both of them taller for it. Hargrove looked good, to Steve’s enduring annoyance, like he was actually on vacation. 

They eyed each other, both probably remembering the punches they threw weeks ago, lifetimes ago, the slam of knuckles on bones echoing like an unspoken hello. This tiny fucking town.

“Hey Steeeve, looking good,” Margaret pealed from behind Hargrove, giving him a once over. Steve was maybe wearing swimming trunks, his dad’s button-up from their Hawaii trip last year rolled up to his shoulders; decidedly underdressed for a fight.

“Hey Margey,” Steve winked, hurting himself. He leaned down a bit, hands carefully avoiding Hargrove’s arm as he braced against the heated metal; for some kind of impact. “Can I borrow the esteemed Keg King for a minute?”

“You really want to embarrass yourself again,” Hargrove gravelled, baring teeth, pushing an equally heated arm into Steve’s hands off his car. His voice sounded foreign, not its usual reeling engine rasp, sharp as sneakers on the gym floor—but lower, darkened, subdued by the sun. “With the rugrats watching and everything?”

Steve didn’t blink, kind of done with this joke. Of who’s on top, who’s king—stupid, endless animosity between the new blood and the has-been. If only Hargrove knew; Steve’s seen too much messed up shit for this song and dance.

Marge pushed at Hargrove's jacket, making him flinch. “Oh go on, Billy, you can take him.”

Steve squinted, pulling back, “He sure can.” Hargrove’s middle finger was splintered; a new break, not from that night. It looked self-inflicted, like he’d punched a wall or the side of a furniture, which was a thought.

Hargrove breathed out through his nose, holding something back, ripping out of the car like shedding armor. Steve made way, half-smiling at Marge in thanks.

Hargrove slammed the door, leaning against the roof and peeling off his shades—his jean jacket fell open revealing his long, cut stomach, sun glinting off his necklace like a lighthouse beam; Steve could finally truly tell that he was Californian—no longer alien in his skin, tan and abundant. Steve wasn’t _actually_ looking.

“What is it, Harrington,” Hargrove said, lighting up. He avoided Steve’s face for some reason—had been ignoring Steve generally, which was new—stretching to glare behind him instead, at the distant din of the pool. “I actually don’t have time for your little show today,” he blew out, pointing at the girl in his car like Steve’s a little slow.

Which, “Great. How about you stop showing up at all?” Steve suggested, putting his puffy mug in Hargrove’s way.

Hargrove snapped to him quick at that, mouth opening on a sneer, “What?”

“Don’t come around these kids any more,” Steve said, gesturing behind him—not daring to look back at their little pug faces definitely pressed up against the fence, waiting on the carnage. “Stay away from them, you scare ‘em half to death.”

And something about it seemingly struck a nerve—Hargrove’s face crumpling in livid disbelief—Steve completely clueless when it came to how Billy Hargrove was wired, badly-crossed and on a hair-trigger.

Hargrove punched off the car, shoving Steve back a huge step, his hand like a brand through Steve’s thin, flowery shirt, “What did I say about telling me what to do, huh, Harrington?” His shoulders squared up, eyes a flash of white pinning Steve to the ground. He nudged his chin at Steve’s mouth, the stitch on his upper lip, proud of his work, “Should I open that up again to freshen your memory?”

Steve planted his feet, an unintentional conditioning. Took Hargrove’s bated rage in stride, remembering that night again. “Max and them are friends, alright,” he said, word-by-word, clear as can be. Like one of his dad’s lectures. “Don’t bring your repressed, tough-guy shit here, or anywhere near Sinclair, ever again.”

“I haven’t touched him since, have I?” Hargrove bit out, grinning shark-like. He shoved Steve again, testing his own advice. He looked manic, maybe sleepless, hair a little wild. “Besides, you think I want to be chasing after your bitch ass and your merry band of dipshits all day? I’m on chauffeur duty until little Maxine goes to fuckin’ college.”

“Steve!” Dustin shrieked across the lot and Steve ducked a little in alarm, twisting around—saw Max’s wide, wide eyes from miles away, Sinclair’s slight form three steps back from the fence, looking guilty. For what. For _this?_

Steve turned back, and Hargrove looked smaller, suddenly. Handleable. Steve twisted his foot into the ground, pushed him right back. Had Hargrove grunt against his own car, dropping his cigarette, face wiping clean with surprise. Steve was not a good boyfriend, was a passable babysitter, but he was good at this—being an idiot.

“What’s your problem with him—is it because he likes her?” Hargrove took a stony swipe at him that would’ve cracked something, that Steve dodged, ready for it. Steve moved in, pushed a finger on Hargrove’s damp sternum, because it was there. “You give a shit about that? You care so much?”

Hargrove slapped his hand away, looking violated, which made Steve smile like a child. “Don’t touch me, Harrington. See what happens.” Hargrove looked confounded, eyes flicking to his own fist marks on Steve’s face, Steve’s delighted, torn-up mouth—his hand a defensive curl against Steve’s gaudy shirt, as if _Steve_ could do any lasting damage.

Steve got close, not touching him. Could feel Hargrove’s breaths coming warm and quick, smoky. Watched with some satisfaction as Billy Hargrove—huge and fierce in his mind—pulled back and back, eyes softening by the proximity.

“You like shoving people into walls, do you? That kid’s messed up now because of you,” Steve said, throwing his arm back. And Hargrove maybe flinched a little, bracing—and Steve immediately lost ground, dropping his shoulders. Huh.

Who in the world could push Billy Hargrove around like this, Steve wondered. Why did he want so badly to be untouchable?

“See what happens,” Hargrove warned again, words empty. The air was hot, charged, neither of them budging.

“I’m waiting,” Steve said, couldn’t believe that he wasn’t already on the ground, bleeding out. Hargrove looked on the edge of it, torn by something, the splint in his hand tapping at Steve’s throat like a pulse.

Marge leaned out onto the driver’s seat then, bored as hell, making them jump. “Are you boys done, or should I let myself out?” Steve shrugged at her, like beats me. Steve didn’t know what to do here, he’d never gotten this far before.

“Fuck you, Harrington,” Hargrove growled, remembering the line, turned red at the edges. He shoved Steve back, finally, shaking off his jacket. Blue eyes bitter even as he fumbled the car door with a lame hand.

“Don’t come around here,” Steve said again, licking his lip, following Hargrove as he ducked into his car, slammed the door an inch from Steve’s face. Steve made sure to get it out, to get it in this asshole’s thick skull that Steve was on _watch_. Would be on watch indefinitely, as long as this town remained the hostile deathtrap hellbent on getting at his dipshit children, for whom he was extremely responsible. Steve pointed back at Sinclair, “Make that kid right again, or don’t show up. You’ve done enough damage.”

Hargrove peeled out of the lot, nearly running him over. Steve stood there for a while, in revelation, blinking after the cloud of dust as it echoed madly in his head: _You want to be where you can see, the troubles are all the same._

The kids were whooping, cheering his name from the poolside, and Steve figured he planted his feet that time.

\-----

“You told him to leave?” Byers said, grin cracking as he sipped from his black, black coffee, hip cocked skeptically into the side of Steve’s car. “Just... _told_ him?”

“Yeah,” Steve shrugged, grabbing a towel from the backseat and hanging it over his shoulder, nudging his shades sliding low on his nose. Billy Hargrove, just like he'd told him, hadn't hung around the kids much since. It like, wasn’t even a big deal. “He tailed it right after.”

“Come on, you probably did _something_ ,” Jonathan needled, coming around to his side, tapping on the roof with a nervous hand. Steve had arrived a little late to the pool to relieve him, but he hadn’t been bothered—was as unbothered as he was wearing all those dark layers in this heat; Steve was sweating just looking at him. “Show off that brutal left hook you got.”

Steve shook his head—so stupid—having lost exactly all of the fist-fights he’s ever had. “Didn’t need to, just had to look like I would, you know?” he smirked falsely, lip rising and bugging his eyes crazily—and Jonathan laughed, catching the bullshit.

“Well, thanks. He freaks me out,” he said, pocketing his hands, shuddering a little—and Steve thought, oddly, that that wasn’t really fair. 

Everyone in Hawkins was a little unhappy, it was only a matter of by how much; Steve thought Jonathan Byers of all people would’ve been sympathetic to that. Not that Steve had been much for him, back then, but he’d learned his lesson—better late than never.

Steve shut the door a little harder than necessary, “Don’t you have to pick Nancy up from the library?”

And Jonathan hesitated, coughing awkwardly. He was pink in the ears when Steve turned, admitting, “Uh, yeah.” Steve knew Nancy had started volunteering there, using her off-time to do research on the paranormal or whatever; it hurt his head whenever she tried to explain. He wasn’t keeping tabs or anything, just old habits.

“So you’ll come tag me out in what,” Steve said like he couldn’t give a damn, waving his towel at Dustin and Will, over there by the pool, holding water balloons behind their backs and grinning wide.

“Three,” Jonathan said, and Steve nodded, jogging off—needing to be under the cool, deafening chemical-water posthaste.

It was an hour later when Max showed up, to a hundred times greater excitement than when Steve showed up. Steve wasn’t hurt necessarily, he just noticed.

“Hey Max,” Steve called, then—noticing that the Camaro was still parked over in the lot, not even idling—gradually pushed up from his reclining seat, eyes searching on instinct.

Billy Hargrove was here, got through the fence somehow. He stood at the other side of the water, barefoot and all, per the pool’s rules. He was all leisure and tousled mane, observing the party with some contempt.

The hell was he doing here, Steve despaired. And their arrangement of never being in fist-range of each other had been working so well. Now he’d have to throw him out, get beat again for his effort in front of everyone, damn it. Steve thought about making the kids avert their eyes.

Max walked over, shucking her shirt, shrugging at their inquiring looks. Mike Wheeler glared and glared, angry at everything these days.

Steve watched, chest lurching, as Hargrove found and approached Lucas sitting by the table across the pool, with their towels piled up. Hargrove pulled out a chair, pointing at it in askance. Steve prepared himself for trouble, whatever that entailed, eyeing the lifeguard half asleep at his post.

“What’s he saying to Lucas,” Dustin said from the seat over, pulling off Steve’s walkman, slack-jawed.

“I don’t know,” Steve said. Hargrove sat down, his body pulled in, defensive. Steve tried to bore a hole through the back of his head, figuring it would be a little dramatic to intervene yet. 

It was five minutes of excruciating tension, at least in Steve’s head. Hargrove was speaking mostly to the side, glaring at the water—but Lucas looked okay, calm and listening to whatever he had to say. There were a couple moments where there seemed to be some disagreement, Hargrove’s hand bunching up on the edge of the table; and Steve was leaning full-body against his numb legs, ready to charge, squinting like he could read lips.

But Lucas smiled in the end, at something Hargrove grumbled, and Steve let out a held breath. Lucas pointed over at Steve, then at his own face, mocking—Hargrove turning slowly to find Steve and Dustin whipping their eyes away like a silent movie. 

“You’re on your own, buddy,” Dustin said, threw the walkman on the seat and cannon-balled into the water, soaking Steve’s feet. Steve gave up and grimaced back, waved a little.

Hargrove put out his splintered hand, and Lucas took it. Steve finally leaned back against the recliner, fingers pulling through his hair in relief, heart shaken at whatever Billy Hargrove was doing here—not to fight, not to start shit. The world had maybe gone off the deep end, following Steve over the edge. His muscles losing their grip on the panic or violence it was waiting for, Steve lounged out again.

“Well, well. Look at you, King Steve,” Hargrove said, familiar and right next to him, and Steve pulled up his shades to see. “Always nice to see you among your people.”

Hargrove had ripped jeans, a white, almost sheer, shirt on—matching his wrapped hand, bright as chrome. He was smirking down at him with some guile, like he was only mildly annoyed to find Steve here.

Steve definitely remembered Hargrove from this vantage point; getting thrown on the ground and kicked in the spleen was not something your body easily forgot, it turned out. Steve fought his gut instinct and stretched out further, like a cat, sinking back on his elbows.

Hargrove wasn’t here to start shit, if the universe could believe it. He was here to make it right—and what a weird day it was. Steve considered the quintessential, textbook Bully-with-hidden-depths for a damn minute, as Hargrove considered him back.

Steve had been in love before. Was kind of still in it, if he was honest. He’d also been infatuated, been obsessed with people, with his friends, with girls—wanting their attention on him, their approval, wanting it all returned in kind. 

Steve took a drag of smoke. He maybe saw something like himself in Billy Hargrove: fool-hardy and so sure up his own ass—until somebody talked some sense into him. Told him what to do to make it all right. Steve didn’t listen much then either.

Steve gestured to himself, rolling his hands down along his raggedy gym shirt, his bare thighs, “Like what you see?”

Hargrove gusted out a strange breath, a hand rubbing idly in the space between his throat and his shirt collar, pulled open to the navel. His eyes were dark, back-lit as he peered down at him, unreadable. He nudged his head back to Sinclair as he snarked, “I didn’t do that because of you.”

“Uh huh,” Steve assured, too late, ego already immense. He pushed his Bans back on his face with the side of his hand, nearly searing his cheek with ash. “Run along now, subject.”

Hargrove huffed a laugh, looking to the side, mouth red and incredulous—pulling something loose from Steve’s stomach for the first time in months. Hargrove did run along, but not before kicking water on Steve’s face, making him splutter.

\-----

Steve felt bloated, leaned up on his car in front of the arcade with its neon sign spinning, picking at the busted open bag of french fries every three seconds. 

He slapped away Dustin and Will’s grubby fingers as they argued about whatever video game had better death animations—because Steve paid for lunch, for every lunch, and they’d already inhaled two-thirds of the bag. Mike on the payphone in the distance, speaking quietly, taking away a fifth of Steve’s attention.

“Are you guys going in or what, I actually have other places to be,” Steve said, having nowhere to be. He pushed Dustin off his car with his knee—Dustin flipping him off—wiping the grease off, too, before chucking the remaining fries and whatever change he had in his pockets into the children’s waiting hands. “I’m picking you all up at six, be right here—except you, Max.”

Max stood up from sitting cross-legged on her deck, tying Lucas’s shoes together, who was uncharacteristically letting it happen. “Can you drop me off, too? Billy’s got chores to do for his dad and can’t come until later.”

And before Steve could get out a word in annoyance, Lucas Sinclair’s voice cracked, yelling, “No!” startling everyone, including himself.

Max whipped around at him, taken aback, “What? Why?” and Dustin kind of edged away at the volume, hiding behind tiny Will to no effect.

“Um,” Lucas attempted, glancing at Mike, who’d returned from the booth and was chewing cluelessly on a fry, then at Steve, who had nothing for him. “There’s no space in the back with your skateboard. Just wait for Billy.”

“We can put it in the trunk, Sinclair,” Steve said, earning a death glare from the little dumbass.

Everyone turned back to Lucas. “Fine, but I gotta be dropped off first,” he finally grumbled, undoing the knots Max made in his shoes with excessive attitude. Steve agreed gingerly, waving at Max and Will and the rest to get inside.

But it was too late, frown deepening on Max’s face as she stepped into Lucas’s shadow, looking reasonably hurt. Sometimes the kid reminded Steve scarily of her step-brother; vivid, living perpetually in indignance. “I’ve ridden with you guys plenty of times, what’s the problem?”

“Nothing, just,” Lucas didn’t look up, brushing it off, “Nothing.”

Max glared at the top of his head, scorned. “Uh, okay. Whatever,” she scoffed, slung a deliberate arm around Dustin and pulled him away to the building, leading the way. Lucas watched them go with a dramatic sigh, Mike giving him a considering thumbs down before jogging to meet Will’s pace.

Then it was just Steve and him, and Steve didn’t have the heart to kick him off his car.

“What’s up,” Steve nudged, sipping his drink, failing to stopper a grin at the little love birds and their little love issues.

“Max’s new dad,” Lucas huffed, shrugging his crossed arms, “he has a problem with black folks.”

And Steve’s stomach bottomed out, swiftly and deeply out of his depth, choking on his coke. And what. _Who._ He looked around a little manically as he coughed and spluttered, searching for an adult. An adulter adult. “Who the hell told you that?”

“Billy,” Lucas said, and that was another devastating blow. What the hell was Billy Hargrove doing telling a thirteen-year-old _that_. That sociopath, Steve could throttle him if he lived through this moment. “Max doesn’t know. He told me.”

This town, it was worse than the Upside Down, sometimes. Steve fumbled, wincing, and anyone, _please_ , “Um, Lucas. That’s not, you’re-“

“I’m not an idiot, Steve. You think I’ve never been told I’m black before?” Lucas tsked, shaking his head, muttering, “Can’t even be Venkman because I’m black.”

“You can be whatever you want to be,” Steve despaired, hand rubbing his mouth, looking around desperately for literally, anyone else to handle this conversation. For the sky to open up and lightning to strike him down.

“My mom told me there’s always gonna be people out there who discriminate,” Lucas continued mercilessly, looking down at his hands. And that was a terrible thing to know about the world, for anyone, at any age. “She said minds don’t get changed about something like that, not easily.”

Steve didn’t hang out much with the non-white kids at school. Steve had never even had to think about it, too busy wanting to be liked to be afraid to be hated. He couldn’t imagine what it’d feel like to be denied his stupid, gut-wrenched feelings for no good reason, for the color of his skin, the natural curl of his hair. 

Steve had always earned his scorn, directly by his idiot actions, his own small heart. It wasn’t fair. It was the furthest thing from it.

“They’re the minority, Lucas,” Steve said, surer than he felt. 

Lucas held a beat, quiet, before shrugging. “Good riddance,” sighing through his nose like he’d already lived fifty years. “Not messin’ with that bad vibe.”

Steve laughed a little, loving this smart kid, his gumption. “I’m sorry,” he said, pushing off the car, kneeling down to meet his eyes. Lucas looked down at him, a little wobbly, knees knocking—and yeah, Steve would definitely fight Hargrove’s dad for this kid. “That sucks, man.”

Lucas lifted his head and looked over at the arcade, kicking out his feet in a kind of defiance. “Whatever, she hasn’t even told me she liked me yet,” and Steve hummed, eyebrows raising. “You know, I told her? That I... you know..”

“Like-like her?” Steve supplied.

And Lucas scrunched his face, embarrassed on Steve’s behalf, “No, jesus, I’m not _eight_. That I’m,” he gestured, gangly arms miming something vaguely adorable, “into her.”

Steve nodded gravely, “Oh, right.”

Lucas glared, annoyed, “Yeah and she just went all red and punched me in the gut. It was kind of awesome but it still, you know, hurt.” He looked on at the building, a bit rueful, face lit up pink and blue by the lights inside. The shape of his mouth showed some wounds, shallow be them still. “Might as well stop before it gets all messed up.”

Steve remembered leaving that house party, a million years ago, the floor booming beneath his feet as he escaped the hollow, stifling bathroom, the deafening halls. Steve remembered feeling nothing but his own hurt, selfish anger rising like bile, thinking that his precious heart and all of its sincerity, its raw love—was wasted on Nancy Wheeler who didn’t return it. 

“You know usually, I’d hate to disagree with you,” Steve said, pushing to stand up, hands on his waist. He considered Lucas, ducking close to observe carefully, warranting a disturbed look. Steve wanted to make sure Lucas meant it. Or didn’t mean it at all. It went either way for idiots like them.

Steve knew now that him and Nancy got all messed up because he left. Steve had left her alone and drunk and grieving in that bathroom to save his own skin, and that had been what killed them. Steve knew now that he hadn’t meant it—not enough anyway.

“But I don’t know if Max would appreciate you making that kind of call on her behalf,” Steve said, following Lucas’s gaze to the noisy, happy building—the beeps and bells of the games sounding muted and far away. “At the end of the day all that matters is the two of you, not no one’s dad and his nineteenth century world-views.”

Lucas snuck a look up at Steve, wincing a little, “That’s scarier.”

“Yeah, well,” Steve did the math, having had both his heart broken and his face nearly ripped off by a monster with eight layers of teeth, “Love’s scary.”

\-----

Steve did drop off Lucas first, then Dustin by proxy. Max was still a little sore, quiet and pissed off in the shotgun seat, staring out the window. Will tried to include her in the argument about ghosts and goblins or something he was having with Mike, but Max only replied by rote.

When they arrived at the house, Billy Hargrove was outside in the driveway, standing by a pick-up truck; the hose on the ground next to him spraying up a feeble rainbow. Something jerked in Steve’s chest at the sight of him, and he ignored it, filed it away as a kind of reflexive defense system he’d developed against dickheads.

Steve pulled up behind the truck, and Hargrove turned from wiping soap off the mirror with his good hand—grey shirt riding up at the waist at the effort, darkened with wet and sticking to the skin. He was barefoot again, water seeping up the rolled-up rims of his jeans and trickling down into the street. There was music blaring from somewhere—Mötley Crüe—from the garage maybe, bass buzzing too loud and eroding the afternoon. 

Hargrove went still in stages, his bopping head and shaking leg going silent, face falling as he recognized Steve’s Beamer. It was a rare look on him, growing concern.

But then his expression turned, going hard again, cigarette in his mouth shrinking by half as his eyes widened like he was caught out on a lie, on a secret—he looked at Steve like Steve was the secret.

Steve swallowed and got out the car. He went around the back to open the trunk, Max mumbling a thanks before running off with her deck, waving at the backseat—and then Hargrove was right there; Steve nearly rolled his eyes.

“The fuck are you doing here,” Hargrove hissed, lower than he usually would, gaze following Max into the house briefly. “I was coming to get her.”

And truly, this didn’t need to be a thing. But Steve could never get away scot-free with Billy Hargrove, could he, what with them being mildly obsessed with each other in a kind of Stockholm hold. That one bruising night last December turning the meaningless, childish thing between them fatal and twisted, one’s blood now in the other’s system, for good, for keeps.

“Don’t get excited. She didn’t want to wait around for you to come later,” Steve muttered, turning to go, but then Billy was stopping him, saying, “ _Hey_ -”

“Billy?” came a hard voice from the house, the front door falling open like an alarm—and they both froze, deer in headlights, as there emerged, towering atop the front steps, seemingly Billy Hargrove’s father. 

And Steve thought- the man did live up to the tale, to the result of what he has brought up. He looked bigger than he was, framed by the door, his buzzcut and well-kept moustache placing him, without question, in the military. Steve’s eyes dropped immediately back on Billy, who appeared suddenly very tired, held hostage by the day. “How’d Max get here?”

Steve raised his hand a bit, jingling his key redundantly, “I drove her, it was no problem.”

The man’s regard turned on him then, as if just noticing he was there, and Steve felt caught too. Like he’d done something wrong, though he couldn’t have. Though the foreign look on Billy’s face did feel like a kind of penance.

“Alright then,” Mr. Hargrove said and turned back to his son with no other question, like Steve’s existence was conditional upon whether it drew his ire. “And Billy, make sure you clean out the fireplace before dinner, Susan’s been complaining about the dust.”

“Yep,” Billy said, biting back, and Steve was starting to think he shouldn’t have come here. He chanced a look at Billy again, couldn’t help it, compulsive. 

“And don’t you dare half-ass it,” Mr. Hargrove sing-songed, as if repeating a recurring line in a sitcom. He made to get back inside, slapping the door in punctuation, making Billy straighten like he was on a string, “You’ve got nowhere to be now that Max is home, you hear me?”

“ _Alright_ ,” Billy growled, low and immediate, and Billy’s dad stopped dead in his tracks.

And then Steve watched in awe as Billy shut his eyes, lashes flickering, dread wiping his face of any recognizable expression. 

For a moment the day froze still, the sun beating down like a gavel. Steve’s spine chilled as Mr. Hargrove asked, turned halfway to the door, almost casual, “What did you say?”

And Billy opened his eyes in slow-motion, meeting Steve’s with abandon. Steve saw something in them, like a plea, a half-hearted threat. If Steve was paying attention, he could see Billy’s hand shaking imperceptibly as it held white-knuckled on the sponge, the sud dripping like a leak onto the cement. _Huh_ , Steve thought again. 

“Yes, sir,” Billy said aloud, carefully clear—it was like nothing Steve had heard from him before.

“Thought you did. And you,” Mr. Hargrove called, pointing at Steve, waving him off like a fly. “Billy can’t play today, he’s got work to do. Get gone.”

Steve nodded, thoughtless, still staring at Billy—at the crooked way he stood, like he was missing a vital limb. There was suddenly none of the fight, none of the natural force that once moved Billy Hargrove across the court and up to the net with ease—nothing but a sad, silent fury as he hung there, motionless, as if at gunpoint.

“See you,” Steve said. He kept watching as Billy didn’t dare speak, hands now busying themselves with the sponge; it felt like he should, as witness, as some kind of assurance. 

Steve backed up to the other side of the car, falling into the seat, finally, finally looking away onto the road—the sky blue of Billy Hargrove’s eyes in negative, imprinting onto the windshield. He shook his head a little, pulling himself out of it and into the lane, hearing Mike in the back mutter, “Is that Max’s dad?”

And it was hard for Steve to tell either, nothing about that intimidating, rigid man reminding him of the courage, the hidden generosity in Max. He could see a little of him in Billy Hargrove though; perhaps in the hardness of Billy’s kick, the terrifying blankness in his face sometimes; the black hole he turned into at his darkest—pulling everything in with no prejudice, tearing them into nothing.

Steve didn’t really know what he’d expected, coming here—maybe just the usual banter with Billy in his natural habitat. Maybe a fight, Steve’s hands itching. Maybe Steve wanted to see this great adversity to Lucas Sinclair’s Romeo in person. 

It certainly wasn’t this; a stark revelation of Billy Hargrove’s origin, the cause of his bottomless anger, his empty cruelty. Steve regretted learning it, like every other dark truth about this town: Billy Hargrove, he figured, was the most breakable thing in that home.

\-----

The rest of the week passed without event, Steve barely seeing anything of Billy Hargrove—Max always appearing on her skateboard from a block away, the sound of wheels screeching away two streets over telling enough that that was the intended effect.

Steve wasn’t exactly waiting, for the aftermath. For some kind of fallout of Steve’s blatant violation of their unspoken truce, his clumsy transgression into no-man’s land, a forbidden territory.

But it had done something, messed with his equilibrium somewhat—Steve’s mind wandering to that house at every idle moment, the radio buzz in his ears, the flood in its driveway pouring over. Billy Hargrove and his eyes waving like heat-haze, carving a space into Steve’s already hay-wired brain, refusing to leave it.

And so it was likely an affect of his affliction, when Steve had a free night and decided on a self-destructive whim to attend the summer’s biggest kegger, held annually down at Yanny Baldwin’s place off main. 

And of course Billy Hargrove was there, and it was so stupid—them thinking they could’ve stayed out of sight forever, in this postage-stamp town.

Steve found Billy halfway into the night, sprawled on the couch with a dying cigarette in hand and his jacket crumpled up behind his head, surrounded like nobility by the wasted and dead to the world. Their eyes meeting with an audible shot from across the totalled room.

Steve had just come down from the master bedroom where he’d bummed a cigarette off of Jenny, who’d owed him at least twenty; he was leaned up against the kitchen island—getting bumped into by everyone, barely here—nursing a chipped mug of Jameson and coke. Feeling not drunk even though he was very drunk, wondering if this is what middle-age felt like.

They’d just stared at each other for an anti-climactic moment; Steve sipping his drink at Billy, calmly even as his throat burned and tears formed in the corner of his eyes, slowly losing nerves by inches. Billy had looked away at that, kind of pissed off—and Steve had agreed, wishing he’d left hours ago, wishing he could go back months.

Steve felt like he knew too much. Missing the times when he used to just hate Billy, with his stupid hair and jacket. Him and Steve’s ex-friends messing with him just for the hell of it, in the halls, during practice.

Wished he could go back to thinking Billy Hargrove was just born violent—just an antithesis to the good in the town like the Upside Down, a snag in an otherwise unremarkable summer—but of course he couldn’t be. Steve knew the world didn’t work that way, had seen enough—and he knew he couldn’t just coast over the whole thing calling it whatever, teenage bullshit, like he used to. Growing pains and all that.

Hargrove took a final drag on his blunt, a brief glowing star in the foggy dark, threw it across the room and rolled to his feet in one smooth motion. And Steve had to just try and stay upright, keep his lunch in, as Billy crossed the entire wavering surface of the house to come over and maim him. 

Steve guessed it was an honor, guessed it was a good thing he was drunk, or else either the maiming or the embarrassment would kill him dead.

And then Billy Hargrove was here, the slight chill of his arrival smelling like alcohol and something tang. His red flannel was rolled up to his elbow, metal bracelets feathering against Steve’s arm as he reached out, zooming in, taking Steve’s mug from him with a pointed look. Like Steve owed him this. Like it was only fair—and maybe it was.

Steve felt it was probably on him to start the conversation—just some recognition that he’d overstepped a boundary and that it wasn’t deserved, no one _deserving_ that; that he hadn’t intended to bear witness to the cold war Billy was fighting and losing in secret, behind the curtains.

Steve would lie and say he’d forget it, that it’d never come up again, if only he could form the words correctly in his sloughing brain.

Hargrove looked pretty drunk too, red blemishing his cheeks. He was half-threatening, an inch from Steve’s face, shoulder pushing him backwards to the kitchen door. “Meet me outside, Harrington,” Steve heard him say, “ _move_.”

And Steve didn’t want to talk in here anyway—his vision spinning along with the twisting, too-hot bodies everywhere, watching the two of them like a televised fight. So he listened—reeling back a little to find the exit, following the back of Hargrove’s head as it weaved towards the cooler air, away from the sounds.

Steve leaned back against the side of the garage, out behind the house, where Billy had led him like lamb to slaughter. He braced his hands on the chilled wooden slats behind him, getting splinters, not caring. Steve revelled in the quiet, felt significantly worse with nowhere to blame the pounding in his chest, his head. 

He pushed the hair out of his eyes, pulled his chin forward with some effort to find Billy Hargrove, out here with him; a little close, little dangerous, teeth a cut of white in the moonlight. _Big Bad_ , Steve thought, ringing tacky and false.

“Don’t ever come to my house again,” Hargrove said, a dark promise in his tone. “Trust me, Harrington, it’ll be the last thing you do.”

“What are you gonna do, sic your old man on me again?” Steve drawled, regretting it immediately as Billy’s jaw ticked, hands closing into rocks. There was something teetering, on a cliff’s edge in the way Billy held himself tonight; halfway between fight or flight, seconds from spilling over.

Steve cleared his throat, blinking quick, alcohol shooting through his nose up to his brain; agonizing. Billy was following his face like he wanted to do something to it, change its make-up—Steve cringed at the look, losing grip, and _god damn_ it-

“Why’d you tell Sinclair that, huh? About your dad,” Steve bit out—so _wrong_ , Billy flinching—strained against his weak throat. “You wanna screw him up more than you already have?”

Billy released his lip from his teeth with a hiss, “Jesus christ, I can’t _win_ with you.” His regard tearing away from him and Steve could almost feel the loss physically, gut-punched.

Billy paced, Steve a deliberate distance away from his reach, like an animal debating whether to trigger a trap. He worked his hands in the air, chest rising and falling quick, face a snarl. “If I’d known you nag this much, I would’ve knocked some teeth out, see if you talk so well then.”

“Yeah? Why don’t you do it,” Steve spat, pushing off the wall, jumping at the invitation. Felt a lurch of something like delight when Billy’s eyes were on him again, struck wide and too bright. “It’s been a while since you’ve thrown threats around, I’ve forgotten what it’s like when you actually follow through.”

And that made Billy’s face split into a grin, sudden and vibrant like fireworks—the kind, in Steve’s experience, that came right before a right hook. Steve grit his teeth on instinct, but Billy was just chuckling, breathless—brows furrowed as he watched Steve waver uncertainly into his space. His eyes roaming and lazer-hot on Steve’s skin, leaving a trail, “Yeah?”

“Or I don’t know maybe you’ve gone a little soft, huh, going around punching rocks,” Steve said, nodding at Billy’s gimp hand like he felt bad—like he wasn’t slurring all his words, squinting against the growing ache in his skull from the effort of holding it up. Steve wished for a moment that Billy would just knock him out, shut him up, end this harrowing migraine he’d been living with for about half a year, “Inanimate objects getting on your nerves now?”

“Well they put up a better fight than you,” he said, smirking. Billy Hargrove was definitely wired badly, Steve’s stupid, dangerous taunts lighting him up like Christmas. His fists were clenching intermittently by his sides, though, ready to break where his words followed.

“Go on,” Steve hollered, knuckles shoving against Billy by his hard, warm chest, pushing him back. “You were about ready to rupture an aneurysm, when I showed up at your door,” Steve recalled, making Billy’s eyes flash in warning. Steve barrelled through it, gritting through Billy’s elbow edged against his shoulder like a knife, “getting hopped up over nothing like you- like it’s all you want—a fight.”

“Come on, Harrington,” Billy was laughing, voice gone rough and meeting Steve halfway, nearly knocking heads, knocking teeth. Steve threw his hands blindly, gut sinking, hoping they’d catch onto something—Billy swatting them away easily like reeds in the wind.

“Or maybe you’ll freeze up again like when your pop showed up-“ 

And before Steve could even process it, Billy was right there, hand a visceral claw around Steve’s collarbone, slamming him hard back against the boards.

Steve let out a high groan, pain blooming down his spine—hand finding and grabbing at Billy’s wrist by his throat, digging his nails in. Billy didn’t even flinch, pinning Steve with a knee on his thigh, sharp and numbing.

“Don’t. Come there anymore,” Hargrove said again through his teeth, licking them—his other hand flexing, vibrating at his side.

“No, you,” Steve said, meaninglessly. It was hard to speak anymore, watching Billy Hargrove get even closer in his blurring vision, hair in his eyes and jaw at a dire slant—and Steve thought he probably missed this.

Steve figured he was just as bad as Billy when it came to the fight. The provocation. Being the idiot in the face of a threat and running headlong into it. Steve waited, breathing out, eyes shutting and rolling back in an odd bliss; bruises forming already in his mind, spreading like a flood. “Do it.” Nothing paid out better and more consistently than a Billy Hargrove scorned.

When Steve opened his eyes, Billy was wearing a stranger’s face. It was too close, too far—Steve failing to focus really on the details of his expression, just catching the odd slope of his brows, long lashes flickering on an unsure beat. Blue, blue eyes searching Steve’s own before they dropped, mindless, to Steve’s mouth. 

And then Billy Hargrove did the unthinkable.

He leaned in, in half-abortive jerks, lids laid low. The first touch was a bite, teeth scraping barely against Steve’s bottom lip, his tongue dipping out to lave underside.

Steve blew out a breath that he’d been holding, bracing for a hit. He couldn’t control his face, slack with surprise. He figured he should probably be freaking out, pushing Billy back, getting the hell out of there—but all he could do was watch in hyper-focus as Hargrove curled in again, draw Steve’s lip tentatively into his mouth, releasing it with a smack. Just, watch.

“What are you doing,” Steve finally got out, biting his lip briefly as if to taste the sudden warmth of it, the wetness.

“Nothing,” Hargrove said, voice leagues underground, shaking his head a little. His thumb was hard, pressing into the hollow of Steve’s jaw, opening his mouth slightly. He made a small noise in his throat, before ducking in again to mouth the freshly bitten lip—and finally, finally Steve remembered to get a hold of himself.

“Don’t do that,” Steve murmured, half-sure, pushing an arm in between them—that Billy easily grabbed and pulled far, far away, from this.

Billy shook again, eyelids dipping unbelievably low, breathing a little loud. “What, I’m not doing anything,” he lied, nosing at Steve’s face, leaning in, pushing his body flush against Steve’s torso, hot like a furnace.

And it was just like Hargrove, to do this. To wedge himself between Steve and the sensible world. To crowbar his way in through the door, make him overheat from the inside out.

Steve wrestled his arm out of Billy’s hand only to grasp haphazardly at his shoulder, hold him still. Billy moved a little to test his grip, cheek filling with tongue. It felt like wrestling, like a game of shirts versus skins—play bordering on riot. Jokes that were meant to cut.

Steve was getting kind of excited, just from the friction, the attention he was getting—Steve didn’t swing that way—and he had to stop whatever the hell this was before his traitor dick made itself known. “You got heatstroke or something, Hargrove?”

And it was a hundred percent an out—Steve willing him to take it, just take it and then knock him around a little, piss off back to his side of the battlefield where they could salvage their careful armistice. Their no-touch rule. _Hargrove’s_ rule. 

“Or something,” Hargrove admitted through a sudden grin—before tipping in, licking right into Steve’s shocked mouth.

Billy Hargrove tasted like liquor when he kissed him—it was a kiss, this. It might’ve been a while since someone had kissed Steve, but he was pretty sure. It felt more like a slap.

Hargrove curled a hand on the back of Steve’s head and twisted to get an angle, laving at his closed teeth, scraping against his chin. His other hand held carefully, resolutely onto the shirt at his waist, like an anomaly. Like a mistake.

Steve tried to say something, voice some kind of disagreement against this like—‘ _Get away from me,’_ or _‘You’re drunk,’_ or _‘I’m drunk,’_ \- but Billy was stronger than him, held him closer than he’d been with anything in his life, took the momentary opening to slip through and kiss deeper, wider; the dam breaking.

And Steve let him, because it wasn’t like Billy Hargrove would listen to him, anyway. Steve let him push his hand further around his waist, to slide onto his back. To have him pull out his shirt to touch the skin beneath at his hip with burning fingers. Let him tip his head forward to bite kisses just below his nose, his tongue, the underside of his lip—Steve just following his lead helplessly, letting it happen, hands lost and grasping at the air at his sides like it’s his first fucking time and.

And it was, _whatever_ , okay? _Alright_ , so he found Billy Hargrove kind of mindlessly hot, twist his arm. Steve was fucked up, it wasn’t _news_ , always being turned on by the kind of person who could kill him with a look; hold his whole, idiot heart in the palm of their hand like it was nothing.

And Steve maybe spent more than a handful of nights since summer started, thinking back on the blistering day, remembering in hyper-clarity the exact curve and cut of Billy Hargrove’s chest, his stomach, golden skin hinting under jean jackets and thin white shirts.

Billy Hargrove being the very picture of a dream, like a poster boy for bad decisions. Mean, sharp grin cutting through a soft, almost child-like face. Tongue pink and bitten and constantly in Steve’s way, used as much to provoke verbally as not, swiping quick and terrible along the curve of his red, red mouth. Steve would never admit this to him but it had been kind of a life-changing experience.

And yeah, there was something dark and sad about wanting the same hands that once caved his head in, broke skin without hesitation, on his dick—but Steve was traumatized, world. He nearly died roughly six times that night, and throughout all he could feel was the imprint of Hargrove’s rings high on his cheeks; the weight of his knee, his whole body, on Steve’s ribs, bending it out of shape. Search him; Steve had tried to stop.

Billy’s breaths were a roar, a false-starting engine, as he lost himself continuously in Steve’s mouth, hard hands grappling with the sides of his face—both careful and careless. Made an abrupt noise as Steve started moving, shakily kissing back, mouthing drunk and uncoordinated—pulling a bit of Billy’s hair in the mess, twisting it under his thumb.

“Yeah,” Billy was saying between breaths, like that was a good call on Steve’s part—frown deepening as he poured in, gasping. Steve’s legs were being kicked open, a thigh slotting through and pushing up, pressing against the heat. “Yeah.”

Steve made an undignified sound as Billy rolled over him in waves, belts clinking—sipping almost chastely from his mouth, cutting his noises off in beats. Billy worked him like a toy, and all Steve could do was hang on, moaning low-pitched down Billy’s throat as he got harder by the second.

Steve leaned away after a while—shocky and blown-out, to let out a keening breath—Billy’s lips landing instead on his chin, clumsy and stupid tender and-

And _fuck_ , that was just—it was so absurdly hot, and so ill-advised; they were messing up somewhere, making the wrong turn, Steve knew.

Billy’s life was fucked up in a very different way than Steve’s was. They were obviously both head-cases; both a little keen on abuse, verbal and physical—which was just beyond disturbed and borderline certifiable and— _shit_ —Billy’s leg moving like heaven between his, mouth scalding on the side of his throat.

And it was paramount in Steve’s scrabbled brain that there be a line somewhere. That drawing it would mean the other thing, the wrong side—the impossible—would stay there too. The softness of Billy’s hands on his jaw couldn’t exist, not really—Steve couldn’t lose himself this haplessly to the con, the lie his hot mess of a brain had formed in his post-trauma.

Steve got his hand up somehow, covering his palm fully over Billy’s mouth—“Stop,” Steve strangled out, mostly to himself. 

Watery eyes refocusing on the top half of Billy’s face, flush and debauched, blinking lazy back at him. “Jesus,” Steve breathed at the sight, could feel the shock of a smile under his hand, dampening with harsh breaths.

Billy did stop, had to—as Steve’s hand was physically in the way—but he didn’t stop in every other sense of the word; hands moving avidly to the hem of his shirt, pulling it out the rest of the way. He pulled him in by the belt, undoing it; making Steve buck, knocking knees. Billy’s eyes vibrant and unmoving on Steve’s face the whole time.

Steve made an abortive noise, head ducking a little, free hand grabbing loosely at Billy’s busy wrists at his fly. “Billy,” Steve said, too soft, resolve weakening. Billy hummed against his hand at the sound of his name, a buzz through the gaps in his fingers—and shit, Steve shutting his eyes against the feeling as Billy’s hand came to be just, there, pushing wrist-deep into his jeans.

“No, no,” Steve was saying, going crazy—because they were literally ten feet away from the rest of the world, the party beating out like a heart still—the two of them awkward and hunkering, hidden only by shadow and obscurity of drink. Billy was just skidding a hand between his body and his dick, knuckles on Steve’s stomach; eyes considering, innocent.

Steve tried to get his head in order, remember why they shouldn’t go here. He had a good argument for why Billy shouldn’t jerk him off behind a tree with the entire town next door and extremely in hearing range, why that would be a stupid thing to do—stupid beyond them.

But Billy persisted, fingers curving now around the length of him, pressed tight between the waist and the damp ‘V’ of Steve’s hip—Steve moaning hard, like waking up, cracking his forehead on the back of his own hand held over Billy’s mouth. 

Billy paused for a beat, waiting, fingers a vice around Steve through the fabric and just- looking. Steve caught his breath, raising his head on a plea. Even this felt too good, other-worldly.

But then Billy began to bring him off in earnest, hand pulling out briefly to push back in beneath the elastic of his briefs and grasp around Steve’s bare cock with a wide, fevered hand. Steve’s chest nearly caved in with the force of it, mouth opening on a silent moan, pressing messily on the side of Billy’s cheek, his throat. Billy squeezed, humming along to Steve’s harsh breaths, hands moving with intent—one tight around Steve’s dick and the other hanging loose on Steve’s shirt, stretching it.

There were stars bursting behind Steve’s eyelids as he fought for breath, hips moving thoughtlessly along with Billy’s pull, shucking quick and rough in his jeans. “Ah, shit, Billy-“ Steve was murmuring, gone on it, biting his lip—and Billy was licking now at the hand over his face, sucking and biting at the skin, getting off on it too—lashes fluttering as he groaned and groaned under Steve’s palm, leg a line of heat as it bumped against Steve’s in off-rhythm.

Steve’s hand was still holding onto Billy’s wrist, but no longer to keep it still, but pushing it deeper, harder against him—hitching his hip into Billy’s hold over and over, losing breath.

Billy pulled him even closer by the waist, hand stripping quicker over Steve’s dick, leaking now in his jeans. Red descended down Billy’s throat, his chest, sweat-slick and heaving as he fought to keep Steve still, keep him nailed to the wall as he brought him off—biting his hand—sharp and fast over the blurring din of the night, the far away noises.

A twisting flick of Billy’s wrist, his cool ring pressing hard against his stomach, and Steve came like a punch—too loud and uncaring—teeth pressed against Billy’s collar as he groaned, eyes shuttering against the blinding white-heat. 

Billy held him through it, arm tightening around Steve’s back as Steve’s hand slipped from his mouth, breaths finally coming harsh and free. Billy licked his wet lips, biting down briefly—and Steve’s eyes stuck there, pinky curling against Billy’s chin.

“Wow,” Steve remarked, to Billy’s huff of laughter. Billy pulled his hand from Steve’s jeans, wiping a little on the side, leaning back to observe his handiwork with a smug press of his lips on Steve’s fingers, eyes drifting liberally over Steve’s wrecked form against the wall, up then down.

And it was done, just like that. Boundaries be damned—they’d jumped over the whole song, jumped the grand canyon. Steve maybe had whiplash.

Steve grabbed Billy by the shirt before he could get too far, Billy’s eyebrows ticking up as Steve’s hand pushed a wet trail down his bare chest, thunder beneath the skin, finger hooking on the pendant.

“You gonna fuck me up, Harrington?” Billy drawled, rough, trembling voice giving away his facade. He pushed his hard heat, hard as one could be in jeans that tight, along Steve’s shivering leg for a moment—testing the feeling, a low growl escaping him. And well,

Steve had never touched another guy’s junk before—but he’d also never fought a rabid tentacle creature of the underworld and _won_ before, and Steve figured if it would make Billy feel even half as affirming as that felt, or even a fraction as good as the mind-wrecking hand job he’d just received, it would be worth whatever hazard this entailed. Whatever devastating revelations that would come in the next life.

Steve made a point to keep his eyes on him, trying on something like brave—staring back at Billy, whose face was slack and open, turned on to a point of his eyes turning just slits of vivid dark.

Steve pushed his still-slick hand, wet from Billy’s mouth, down his jeans—Billy’s breath hitching, teeth baring, as his hand curled warm and desperate over Steve’s, over the zipper. And Steve thought wildly, at the wrecked sound Billy made when he pressed down: _Huh_.

Billy was quieter like this, certainly quieter than Steve—foreheads pressed together, mouth fallen open, as he pressed his hip into Steve’s steady, deft hand with languorous rolls of his stomach. 

Steve tapped his fingers on the side of Billy’s throat, trying to get a hint, some sign that it wasn’t awful—that he wasn’t awful at this. Steve mouthed, _‘hey’_ , nudging at Billy’s nose as he pulled short and a little quick, once, right at the top of Billy’s dick—drawing out a keening curse from his ragged throat.

“Fuck, Steve,” Billy was saying, eyes snapping open in pleasured shock to find Steve's, as his moans doubled in volume, coming with every lurch of his body—pulling his bottom lip by his teeth as his face crumpled, breath coming fast through his nose. Steve watched Billy’s face lose all its lines, pink and flush with abandon—figured he probably wasn’t awful at it.

Billy’s hand was tight over Steve’s wrist, as Steve squeezed and pulsed against it, drinking, feasting on the look on Billy’s face as he rasped, “Steve, Steve-“ and that was Steve’s name—Billy’s voice unbelievable, mouth a blur on the side of Steve’s face, teeth grazing his ear. 

Billy was snapping in sharp succession, tight little circles of his hips—fingers curled around the back of Steve’s head, tangling in his hair, as he watched Steve’s and his hands moving in tandem, moaning out, “Ah, ahn, uh, hu- _Fuck_ -”

And Billy was coming, Steve quieting him with his mouth as he swallowed the guttural sounds straight from his throat. Billy riding it out against Steve’s arm in gradually lesser arcs, chasing after the pounding in their chests.

Billy biting along the top of Steve’s mouth, sucking harsh around his tongue, humming. And Steve was gone on it, pushing in, deepening it without thought—the feeling of Billy shuddering open under his hand, the physicality of it triggering a kind of chemical relapse in his brain; and Steve dug his hands down Billy’s back, pulling him flush, kissed and kissed him until they were both drowning.

Billy finally pushed him back, gasping, his hand still wrapped around Steve’s head, pillowing it from the wall. Steve breathed out like he was hyperventilating, white spots in his vision—couldn’t help but grate out, “’S what you get,”

“Hell, Harrington,” Billy opined, voice dragging dark and in awe, untangling, “You kiss the girls with that mouth?”

Steve was kind of enjoying himself now, glad he hadn’t left earlier when he was dissociating from the physical dimension. Turned out a little rough company went a long way.

Steve watched as Billy pulled a smoke from his pocket and lit up, a little out of it, his hands clumsy—fascinated by the bend of Billy’s knee, the wet on his chest; Billy Hargrove avoiding his gaze, gone pleasantly red.

“Just the one,” Steve said, and it was saying something that Billy didn’t even flip him off, just jerked his head up, impressed, smile genuine and abrupt on his face—the sight of it like adrenaline, shooting straight into Steve’s badly-guarded heart. He gusted out a pained breath, blinking back—another devastating weapon at Billy’s disposal.

The curve of Billy’s mouth excruciatingly soft, heavy lashes dragging a trail down the length of Steve. “Getting mouthy, are we.”

Steve’s eyes stuck on Billy’s mouth like a spell, and Billy chuckled on an exhale, endlessly amused—took the cigarette from his lips and stuck it between Steve’s, which was not exactly what Steve meant. But he’d take it, would take anything at this rate.

“See you around, Harrington,” Billy was saying, with a final, searing look; turning and sauntering over to the driveway with a shallow limp, a hand crooked on his belt—and Steve hated to see it, but loved to watch him go. Dragging deep on the now-known taste of Billy’s brand, filling his mouth.

“Hope not,” Steve called back, cringing at the sick wetness of his voice, clearing it. So obvious, like he was actually eight. 

He felt the embarrassment on some basic level, his higher brain mostly sated and blissed out by the sex, his ribs gone weak at the fondness of Billy’s voice as he laughed at him, his real smile a vision—and _jesus_ , was Steve kidding himself.

Steve couldn’t pretend that that wasn’t all he’d been edging for for the past six months. Every condescension, every slight, every bruising damage he’d taken sticking, growing like weeds through his depraved, wasting brain. It'd percolated beneath his skin, boiling over in the summer heat.

It taking every waking hour of his mental strength—which was lacking on his best days—to avoid the thought of it, of wanting Billy Hargrove this way, of wanting him in more ways than just out of his life. Because Steve Harrington was not that person—or so he'd believed for his entire adolescence—and he believed that he never would be.

But nothing he said took any more, and he understood that that’s just how it had to be with Billy Hargrove. All of his best intentions burnt to dust whenever he'd drifted into Billy's orbit, caught in the solar flare.

Steve bargained that he could probably live with that, gone incredibly easy with Billy’s taste in his mouth—the feel of his skin under his hands unlocking something critical in him, letting it loose into the night. Steve watched the Camaro disappear, along with the dwindling last of his defenses.

\-----

And nothing changed other than the one thing -

Billy Hargrove still drove his little sister everywhere, still driving that thing like a maniac, like the intent was to crash. Still lived large, the hottest thing in town, unavoidable by nature; still a living pain in Steve’s ass.

Still heckling Steve any chance he got, with his asshole crew in tow. Flicking his tongue at him through the window when he came by the drive-thru to pick up dinner, calling him sovereign, a damn meal, to everyone’s delight. 

Exactly the same, except meaning something completely different now—Billy’s eyes on Steve dragging a bit more, falling behind the rest, making the intent clear to the singular, captive audience—and it wasn’t lost on him, as Steve wasn’t blind, his stomach doing flips like a trained dog.

And there wasn’t much restraint on Billy’s part, not that he’d expected it. It was like he'd planned it out for months—the slow, ruinous siege that edged Steve against the proverbial cliff, jarring him into reaction. The summer got hotter and Billy shed outerwear and inhibitions like skin; hands ready to touch, to leave marks where his words followed.

Steve arriving at a party and Billy appearing magically beside him, stealing sips of his drink straight from his hand, leg hooking over Steve’s on the couch like he owned it, half the town as witness. The two of them stumbling into a closet an hour later to fuck around; hands in each other’s shirts like they were looking for the parachute—Steve’s heart free-falling through the floor at the first scrape of Billy’s teeth on his throat.

Like Steve was wearing a bell everywhere; Billy finding Steve’s car in the lot at the diner and coming over to shove him back into the driver’s seat, looming. A bare knee pressing down like a nail at his hip, asking him: “where you going,” and “what’s the hurry,” like Steve had to ask permission these days.

Billy finding and cornering him in the store at the BP, pushing full-bodied at Steve’s back into the aisles, hands chilled from the cooler and ruthless at the back of his neck, waist, smelling of petrol.

Throwing a Butterfingers along with Steve’s smokes at the counter, sneering mean and fake at Steve’s half-hearted protest, eyes drifting, following the corrupted blush of Steve’s cheeks beneath the collar.

Dragging Steve into the changing room by his waistband while the kids were occupied, warring over the ice cream, to push a hand down his trunks, fingers sticky and sweet as it pulled debased, foreign sounds out of him, so easily—catching most of it with his mouth, the rest ringing out like an orchestra in the tiny stall.

And finally: dropping Max off at the arcade and sticking around in the quiet parking lot for half an hour after, just the noise of traffic coming over the highway, like Billy Hargrove had nothing better to do on a Friday evening.

Folding a leg over the Beamer like it was his living room, spinning his rings and leaning his head back, watching Steve at an angle. Testing his limits, spread atop Steve’s windshield like a Renaissance painting.

And Steve wasn’t better, honestly, as bad as ever. Taking to the newfound tension—this- misguided game of gay chicken—like he did the abuse. Rather chancing getting knocked out again than being the one to put that crucial inch of space between himself and Billy’s dark, devouring pull.

And it wasn’t about pride really, not his old competitive jocky shit flaring up again—refusing to lose an inch to Billy Hargrove—because that, he had a handle on. Mostly.

No, it was just this- ever-present, compulsive streak of fatalism he’d been living with, coinciding with the sexual aberration that was Billy Hargrove in midsummer, hitting him like a ton of bricks, like a runaway train. Steve was just casualty in the crash.

Steve was just a dumbass, following his libido and raving neurosis right into hell—eyes dropping, slipping a damp hand between the opening of Billy’s shirt, pushing his palm on the curve of his chest, over the bumps of his ribs. The fateful, thudding organ.

Steve didn’t know if he’d ever revert to his former self. If Billy would either. Found more and more that it didn’t matter, that he failed to care—already making peace with it, this new way of the world. Again, nothing had really changed; Billy could still lay him out with one hand.

\-----

Steve didn’t even really think about it until the weekend, at the pool again—like a job, like his body ran on chlorine. 

Whipped under the ninety degree sun and milling halfway out of his car, he’d looked over at the poolside, blinking through the sweat in his eyes—and Billy Hargrove was there, as ever, leaned up against the side of the fence opposite of Lucas; talking, casual, like they were neighbors. Steve took his time, going anxious at the sight.

There was a familiarity in the way the two of them stood, just chains between them. Nothing should’ve brought them together, not by logic nor physics. But something about them was the same, a glimmering reflection in the heat-mirage.

Maybe it was the shared enemy, the shared allies. A venn diagram of people who Steve and Max called ‘dickhead’ with newfound affection. Steve squinted at the phenomenon, something pulling low on his stomach, like the universe throwing up a 'slow' sign.

Something about seeing Billy Hargrove so close to the others was screwing with Steve’s psyche—all of his fight-or-flight instincts getting jumbled up in the mess. It had been less than a week since Billy was on the other end of the court, was something Steve needed to get through. 

Lucas noticed him standing there in the middle of the parking lot, waving. Billy turning to see, pulling back, hanging only by a hand at the fence. And Steve’s heart juddered in his chest; Billy Hargrove’s eyes on him enough now to incite a response.

He was over here on his side now—whether Steve could bear it or not—barreling him over, making him lose sense with just a look. Billy kissed him in lieu of a kick to the stomach, once, and suddenly he was just, there—breaking the three-second rule—and it wasn’t the end of the world.

Steve watched as Billy slapped a hand on the fence as goodbye, yelling something at Max, eyes not leaving Steve’s as he strode back to his car parked along the wall, some distance away.

Steve checked his watch, fiddling with it, as if to see if he had the time for, god, _what_ —walking briskly over, to Billy’s car, trying to be something like subtle.

Billy turned on the ignition—the engine roaring to life—pulling an 8-track out of the radio to flip it over. And then he leant back against the open door, arms crossed, waiting; watching Steve approach with a burning look, looking like he had all day.

“What do you want, Harrington,” Billy said, when Steve got in hearing range, fighting a smirk; a joke in there somewhere. He nodded his head over to the pool, “You shouldn’t leave your friends hanging.” 

“Get in the back,” Steve suggested, like friendly advice, pulling open the rear door and closing the other. Steve was out of breath already, like he ran here. He didn’t have the damn time.  


“Yessir,” Billy quipped, pulling a sharp smile out of the both of them, entering ass-first.

Steve had been in this car before, once—he’d been barely conscious, but he remembered the speed of it, the sounds, the crush of leather. It looked different now, in the light of day—with Billy Hargrove lounging on the other side of the long seat, looking at him like he’d been starved for weeks. 

Steve moved on auto-pilot, like drawing out a battle-plan, hands pulling on the underside of Billy’s leg to spread out over his own. He curled over Billy’s body, a mirror image, pulling at his shirt in the middle as it gave open, the only way it would go. 

Steve watched his own hands like he was a third-party; his subconscious doing some work to protect him, to keep his skin out the game, prevent a liability. Noble as the effort was, it was probably beyond late for that.

“What do you use, by the way,” Billy said, grinning crooked with half his mouth, nodding at the flop of hair getting incessantly in Steve’s eyes.

“No, don’t-,” Steve raised a finger, warning, because they were not doing this. “Don’t ever ask me that again.”

Billy laughed, letting his flannel get pulled off over his head by the cuff, awkward and limbs everywhere. And then he was shirtless; shirtless and glowing and sprawled out like a dream in the back of his beautiful car—and god, Steve was not even gonna last a minute.

The sudden return of the splashes and screams of the pool outside like a slap, Steve’s hand curling tighter around Billy’s ankle on reflex, pressing his cheek against Billy’s bent knee; wondering how it could possibly have come to this. This world stranger than anything he could've expected.

“What are you looking at,” Billy said, hands lazy and determined around the flesh of Steve’s arm, the soft skin there. And Steve wasn’t looking at nothing, just Billy: flush and eager beneath him like an open invitation. 

He’d never seen Billy from this vantage, eyes roaming to Billy’s cut shoulders, his toned chest, a bruise on its side; the line of his soft stomach falling like a river down his snug jeans.

Steve widening his eyes, shaking his head a little at him like, _who, me?_

Billy nudged his head with his wrist, leering back, hungry. And Steve got maybe another five seconds in of the view, before he was thrown back, Billy using the tangle of their legs as leverage to flip them over, pushing him down on to the other side of the car.

Steve huffed at the change of angle—his knees up and clamped around Billy’s full shoulders, back curved and aching good, a pen or something digging at it—Steve made an obvious noise, adjusting a little under the weight of Billy Hargrove bearing down on him like gravity, turned on to eleven.

Billy wasn’t listening to his complaints, hands busy at Steve’s buckle, shucking his belt clear and into the front seat. He peeled open Steve’s jeans, pushed it down as much as it would go—with Steve’s legs pretzeled around his hip—to push his palm, hot and heady, against his dick—like he couldn’t wait, moaning along with Steve, lashes flickering and teeth digging white into his lip.

“Yeah, you’re hard for me, huh,” Billy seething, like it gave him physical pleasure, just the idea—like Steve had ever _not_ been hard while Billy’s hands were on him, who was he kidding.

Steve made an agreeable sound anyway, bucking his hip into Billy’s grip with little input, not really aware of it. It was sweltering in the car, even with the AC on—Billy’s skin like a star under his hands as it drove against Steve with every pull of his fist, mouth open and just skimming against Steve’s cheek, his forehead—Steve’s hands searching for it in the dark fog of arousal.

Billy slowing a little when Steve finally found it, kissed him with a groan, saying his name muffled against his tongue—And then Billy was moving away with a grimace, teeth pulling on his lip, and down—Steve blinking blearily to watch him go, confused and embarrassingly on the edge already.

But Billy was just freeing himself from the vice of Steve’s thighs, kneeling a leg on to the floor of the car to drag Steve’s jeans down further down his hip. Steve’s knee bumped against Billy’s shoulder in the effort and Billy lost breath, every touch a physical blow, voice dragging along the pit of Steve’s stomach.

“Sit still,” Billy growled, destroying Steve a little bit. Then he ducked his head, placing it, vulnerably, between Steve’s sharp, dangerous knees, his thighs, up to his unbuttoned fly—and Oh. Oh, _jesus_ —dragged his tongue hard up Steve’s dick, from base to tip, through his briefs.

“ _O-kay_ ,” Steve strangled, nonsensically, head cracking back against the door at the revelation of Billy’s mouth right there, his spine a live-wire. Billy’s thumb pressing down on the triangle of skin where his leg met hip, slipping under to lift the elastic, sucking, a bit of teeth, around the searing line of him—making Steve punch the car seat, bite his tongue.

“You alright there, baby?” muffled around his _dick_ —and _baby,_ Steve was _not_ alright, keening and pushing against Billy’s hold, leg hooked around Billy’s wide back and hand pressed to the window above him, pulled open by every seam.

Steve was fighting against the feeling, trying unsuccessfully to retain some of his dignity; a word like _’no’_ and _‘not here, not thirty feet from the children’_ living on his chest—but his free hand was now wrist-deep in Billy’s hair, a treason, pulling him closer, as Billy finally hooked a finger, pulled down the offending fabric and put Steve out of his misery.

Steve snapped his eyes shut at the first pull of Billy’s mouth around his bare cock—his tongue pressing deep on the underside, flicking at the top as he tugged off. When Steve shuttered open, hazarding a look down—Billy’s eyes were waiting, spinning dark, blown open and a little desperate for Steve’s face; dipping down to suck a raw kiss on the base of him, letting out a low moan at the sight.

Billy sucked him off like he did everything else, greedy and punishing, just at the cusp of too much—Steve was gone on it, at the squeezing hand contrasted by the soft heat of Billy’s mouth, taking him deep and merciless. The wet, beating sounds overrun by the hurricane in Steve’s ears, his pounding chest like a tin drum.

Steve’s leg shook and bounced against the floor of the car, stomach trembling at the effort of not giving in, not fucking into Billy’s warm mouth like a douchebag—a close thing—and Billy’s arm came around it to hold it still, ducking his head down to swallow him whole, his throat tightening meanly around the tip of his dick. Steve’s hand fisting in reaction at the back of Billy’s head, Billy groaning in protest, vibrating around him.

And Steve would remember back on this and learn that he had no one to blame; that he was one hundred percent responsible when it came to Billy Hargrove on his knees, giving him his first, and the last—because he was about to _perish—_ blowjob of his life in the back of his Camaro. Steve would feel a certain degenerate pride in that if he wasn’t, again, about to die and be dead.

Steve felt it coming, in waves up his chest, his throat, “Billy,” pulled out of it in warning, high and thready. His hand slid around Billy’s head to push at his temple, his hips rolling up a little at the tension, at keeping it at bay, feeling too good. “Ah, Billy,” he said again because fuck, maybe Billy couldn’t hear, _shit_.

Steve tried pulling off, leg pushing against the seat to lever Billy off him, his limbs barely in control—but no, Billy could hear, he just wasn’t gonna acknowledge; pinning Steve’s leg by his elbow before grabbing him by the waist with both hands and pushing him down, driving him into the seat.

And Billy just took him whole, hand squeezing low on his stomach—Steve choking at the sight, at the sounds, struck by the feeling of the airless pull of Billy’s mouth, the wall of his throat closing around him—Billy pushing his own hips against the edge of the seat in a rough rhythm.

And if Steve was honest that was what did it—the sight of Billy pushing thoughtlessly against the leather, soft reeling sounds falling from his chest, brows pinched in concentration and reluctant bliss—as he brought himself off with just Steve’s cock in his mouth, without a hand on him. Steve came hard, eyes squinting shut and a silent yell tearing out of his lungs, burning his throat like a supernova.

Steve dropped his head, hitting it on the window. He pushed against Billy’s hold, pressing a little against the top of his mouth as he pulled off, watching the dip of Billy’s throat like a puzzle, a crucial hint. “Oh god,” torn out of his ragged pipe as he came down, shocky with it, his brain a pleasant ooze dripping from his ears.

And Billy was sliding up, swift and businesslike, taking Steve’s hand curled limply around the back of the seat and pushing it palm first against his dick. Steve felt the groan more than heard it, Billy’s chain sticking to his sweaty cheek as he worked Steve’s hand over himself, still over the jean, grinding his hip unsteadily.

Steve watched, fully out of it, at Billy's face turning over like the day—brows furrowing as his mouth fell open, breath coming quick and heady against Steve’s forehead as his chest caved in and out an inch from Steve’s mouth.

And it didn’t take much more—just a tongue-kiss pressed to the center of Billy’s collarbone—and Billy was grunting, hips pushing on a staccato rhythm as Steve’s wrist creaked, a little sore, under the crush of Billy’s hand. Billy huffing a breathy curse on the side of Steve’s head, hissing through his teeth, as he bucked in a final time, squeezing around Steve’s fist in a softening rhythm.

Steve watched Billy loosen from his rigid, shielding arc over Steve’s body, his hands calming on his back. Billy leaning back after a hundred breaths, staring at Steve through damp curls, his eyes slashes of black across pink cheeks. 

Steve’s view drifted down again to the glistening pecs, the drops of their come rolling slowly down the curve of Billy’s abdomen, disappearing into the open cut of his jeans. Steve looking up at him conversationally, about how unbelievably hot it was.

And Billy wisely knew nothing good was about to come out of his mouth, so he ducked in and closed it with a kiss, bitter and cool with wet. Something like perfect.

“What were you talking about,” Steve said, after, leaning over the open door, shading Billy from the sun. Kept an eye on the pool, the cyan blue of it calling to him, his body drenched and aching. “With Lucas.”

“Don’t get hotheaded,” Billy muttered, his boots half-on and kicking idly at Steve’s feet. “I’m not gonna mess him up,” rolling his eyes at the rise in Steve’s eyebrows, “ _Any more_.”

And Steve believed it, to a point; because there was only so much Billy could do about it, was there. Billy Hargrove just playing the role of the wake-up call, in both of Lucas and Steve’s life. Just a reminder that it wasn’t just all supernatural monsters out there, waiting around to fuck with their hearts.

“He’s too smart for his own good.”

Steve looked down at Billy, sat at the edge of the seat, framed by his arms. Eyed the familiarity in the wounds, the exact downcast angle of his chin—thought that Billy’s dad probably wasn't just against Max liking someone like Lucas. 

Knew with a sickening turn of his stomach, that he would be very against Billy seeing someone like Steve. 

And for whatever reason it was like a cold fist closing over his chest, hitting him harder than he’d imagined it would. It wasn’t exactly news, Steve not being so naive or idealistic to think any of it would pass—with nearly anyone—let alone with someone like Mr. Hargrove.

And none of the hopeful assurances that were afforded to Lucas and Max would be afforded to them. As there was nothing innocent about what Billy and him were doing here. Nothing pure of heart. They’d started with blood in the water first.

Nothing really changed, because nothing really could. The thing between them stuck ever in stalemate, and there it would stay, no matter how much or little they gave into it. No matter how good it felt. It was never about blame, nor resolve, Steve knew.

“What, Harrington,” Billy said, glaring at him through the sun. He didn’t like the look on Steve’s face, something wrong about it—but Steve couldn’t do anything about that.

“Nothing,” Steve told him, because it could be. If they fought harder at it. “Nothing.”

\-----

It was maybe five days since he’d last seen the Camaro around—two since Steve had admitted to himself that he was counting—when he made the trip.

Max had been coming by less frequently, only making it when they were meeting closer to the neighborhood—arriving always a bit sweaty from the skate, less sunny for it.

“Billy’s grounded,” she’d told Steve when he asked, not explaining for what. “He has to look for a job.” And Steve had stared at the middle distance for the next quarter-hour, trying to imagine Billy ever working for a boss.

When Jonathan came to tag him out—ever the cool dad, taking the kids to the PG movies instead of giving them shit for diving in the shallow end—Steve made the wrong turn out of the parking lot, drove to the crossroad that led to the Hargrove-Mayfield house. Just to look. Just to see if it looked the same, and then he’d go home, stop thinking about it.

He pulled up to the curb across from the driveway, the house eerily quiet despite the cars present. He stared at the back of the Camaro, frowning at its shape; looking wrong and prop-like without Billy in it.

The place looked ordinary, still pretty new, like one of those open houses made to sell the idea of the suburbs. Steve didn’t know why he was holding his breath, pulse running two hundred a minute.

He made to drive away before he got caught, before he officially became a creep—then he heard it: something falling onto wooden floor from inside the house, a heavy sound like something metal. A yell. And then another. And then it kept coming, and Steve decided he would wait, just for a little bit.

Steve knew Billy said not to come here. Steve knew why, in some abstract sense; it lived too raw, too vulnerable on Steve’s mind to look at straight on, but it was always there, on Billy’s face.

There were threats, promises of it being the last thing Steve did; but Steve wasn’t afraid of Billy anymore, if he had ever been. There were worse things in the world than Billy Hargrove’s hands on his body, Steve had learned.

Steve didn’t need to wait long, Billy coming banging out of the house a moment later, slamming the door behind him, a storm. A shout came from inside, chasing him out—and Billy didn’t pause, flying down the stairs and onto the sidewalk, jacket in hand. Steve hit the horn, jarring himself awake at the sound.

Billy saw him, stopping—jerking back and meeting Steve’s eyes through the window, pinning him to the seat. He looked like he thought he was dreaming, blinking dumbly through red eyes. Steve almost laughed, surprised by the idea that he’d missed him.

And then Billy’s dad was standing at the front door, voice stern but somehow angrier than anything Steve had heard—telling him, “Billy, get back here.”

But Billy wasn’t moving, glancing back at the house, then back at Steve, wretched—and Steve almost shook his head no, even as he pulled the gear into drive, unlocked his door. 

Billy’s dad was saying, “ _Right now_ ,” something razor sharp like a reminder in the words; and yeah, no, Steve turning the wheel with one hand.

Steve pulled over to the other side of the street and then Billy was throwing his jacket through the window, tearing open the door—“Don’t you _dare get in_ -”—Steve flooring the pedal as soon as it slammed shut, not looking back. 

There was a final word, a caustic sound—and then there was just the slide of rubber on asphalt, the gush of trees as Steve’s car blazed out of the street, fell on to the highway. Steve got them out of there like they were being chased.

They drove for what felt like hours, going way over the limit—the suburbs blurring speedily into wooded fields, the roads getting rougher, older—before Steve chanced a look. Billy was staring dead ahead, elbow leaning on the sill, hand curled over his mouth. Steve ignored the wet on his cheeks, opting to watch Billy’s reddening ears, his hair whipping in the wind.

Steve didn’t know what they were doing, as if this would make any difference—as if escaping that house on a bender would make Billy’s dad any less frightening, make it any less a jail. As if it would finally allow Steve to think about literally anything else during the day. 

It was just another absurd pretense, like fighting gravity, expecting the brief summer and its sweltering days and cool nights to last forever. Steve turned his head to the road, uneasy at the vision of Billy in his car looking lost, looking as young as Steve felt.

“Billy,” Steve started, sorry, having made zero good decisions since he’d woken up that morning—par for course. “I know you said not to-“

“Shut up,” Billy interrupted, voice sharp and hollow, not looking at him. He thumbed his nose, sniffing a little, eyes rolling and head dropping back unceremoniously, “Don’t listen to me.”

Steve pulled over onto the side of the road, right up to the rusty fence barely keeping them from plummeting a hundred foot drop into a dry ravine. Steve’s chest felt like he’d already made the jump—rubbing his nerveless hands along his jeans, having no clue. He’d never gotten this far.

Steve turned off the engine, the air going silent. “You wanna say something you mean, then,” he sighed at his hands, clasped at the wheel. Steve was tired, his nights these days sleepless and belligerent, fighting him back. It was somehow entirely Billy’s fault, leaving Steve to toil alone in this for a whole week, with just the memory of Billy's hands on him agonizing in every uncertain, waking hour.

“Fuck off, Harrington,” Billy muttered, shaking his head at the ceiling—and Steve snapped, twisting to him, explaining as if to a child: “I can fuck off or not listen to you, asshole, I can’t do both.”

A car whizzed by them on the road, thrown-water sound, shaking their cage. Steve swallowed, hands on the handle and the back of his seat as anchor—and Billy threw him a look, like a bone.

Billy looked okay, just furious—with himself or Steve, he didn’t know—the sunset bisecting his profile like a scar, gold and navy. His lip was pulled into his mouth, breaking into a grin at Steve’s continued stare, incredulous. Like here they were again.

“You got another reason for bringing me out here, Harrington,” he said after a while, chucking his jacket to the back and flicking on the radio, finding a good station, “or are we gonna get on with it?” And kissing; Billy meant kissing, leaning over, finger hooking between the buttons at Steve’s collar, tugging it loose. 

Billy wanted to fuck around—his face still blotchy and shining and brows fixed perpetually on a broken slant—wanted Steve over there right now. Was pulling him in, eyes dipping, almost asking,

And Steve. Despite wanting to balk, unlock the door and tear out of his seat and leave Billy here, with the vast and unwarranted weight of this thing, boring a hole through the floor of his car; 

Steve—despite wanting to just shake him, shake Billy by the cuff until they both broke down, until their bodies became unrecognizable, going unfound for decades on the side of the cliff—went, over there.

Billy met him with a shuddering exhale, eyes falling closed in relief, finding Steve’s lips by feel alone. Steve leaning in, pulled awkward over the stick, hand crumpling against his thigh and watching Billy from point-blank as he dragged breath after breath over his tongue, the roof of his mouth, hand crawling up his throat to hold his jaw- 

Because Steve did mean that, earlier. About being an idiot.

Billy may not have meant half the things he said, but Steve meant it, the whole time; when he pushed a finger on Billy’s chest, when he hit him until blood marred Billy’s teeth and his knuckles splintered.

Meant when his heart went crooked at the sight of Billy on his knees, at the very first slide of his skin under Steve’s. Meant it when he held Billy’s head in the palm of his hand in the back of the Camaro, meant every terrible, wanton thing he uttered into Billy’s ear, the bend of his neck, his mouth; it had been impossible not to.

Steve kissed Billy back, because they had a hundred years to live. To sleep, to eat, to find a little reprieve.

Steve shut his eyes finally and opened his arms, let Billy fall into it, settle there like a bad habit. Steve pulled his elbow around Billy’s shoulder, pushed his fingers through his hair, twisting him close, turned the angry crook of his brows to mean something less heartbreaking, something softer. 

Billy’s hands rough on Steve’s face, Steve shushing him, telling him, “easy,“—and Billy’s teeth loosened their lock, opening on a low keen; whole body melting against Steve’s arms, tongue licking careful, reverent along Steve’s mouth.

Because they had a hundred years, give or take. And that was too long, and far too short, to be pulling any punches. To be thinking twice. To not mean all of it, every last inch.

He held him there, at the edge of the cliff, and waited for the summer to end around them.

 

 

* * *


End file.
